A Community of Writers and Photographers

Tag Archives: commecial art

For over thirty years, I’ve illustrated food. I loved the challenge of rendering fruit; each variety had beautiful colors and textures to capture. All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed.

With citrus fruit and oranges, I created a pattern of circles and “half moons” that radiated from the highlight in order to replicate the orange peel texture.

This is one of my earliest watercolors of oranges for Sundance Beverages. It is purely with watercolor and doesn’t utilize the acrylic glazing that I developed later on.

I have so many illustrations of citrus fruit, that I am dividing them into categories and plan to share lemons, limes and grapefruits on another post.

The illustrations I am sharing below were primarily used on labels for orange juice. The others were used for beverages, baby food, Popsicles and jam.

Most of these paintings were rendered with markers and colored pencils and others were created with watercolor dyes. I share more about creating the orange peel texture using airbrush acrylics and a glazing technique at my other blog link below:

I have illustrated so many fruits, that it’s fun to select groups of them to share. I have been a food illustrator for over 30 years. For this post, I’ve chosen plums and pomegranates. These illustrations were used on labels for yogurt, baby food, juice, jam and vitamins.

Plums are similar to grapes with their powdery surface. I used a light gray colored pencil over my watercolor painting; the bluish cast was useful to portray that effect.

This painting was early in my career. Later on, I became much better at painting prunes. Compare this with my later illustration below.

Seeing these prunes close up, shows how abstract they become. There are many colors to be found within them. I especially loved the deep burgundy.

The pomegranates illustrated here were created later in my career. For the last few illustrations, I painted over a digital rendering that I generated on my computer and was definitely more photorealistic. The computer was extremely useful composing my painting and allowed for clients to give great input before I painted anything.

An example of my photo-reference shows how much improvement was needed!

I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

For this post, I am sharing some of my favorite floral paintings. I begin with an illustration of a rose bouquet that was used on the cover of a paperback romance novel. I have included the art director’s layout, as well as the printed book cover.

When I illustrated a billboard for Conroy’s Flowers, I painted each letter approximately 10 inches tall. I photographed numerous trays of flowers to serve as photo reference and created collages from those photos to assist me.

My illustrations of six floral groups below, were printed on vinyl that adhered to windows. The company that commissioned them was called “Color Clings.”

These other paintings are from miscellaneous commercial assignments over the course of my art career.

My technique for these paintings involved markers, watercolors, dyes and/or colored pencils; these were created before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

I have been illustrating food since 1980. I especially enjoy painting fruit, which I continue to share on Twenty Lines. Each variety of fruit I rendered posed its own particular challenges. Below are many of my paintings of grapes, as well as close-ups. My grape illustrations were used on labels for yogurt, wine, juice, jam and vitamins.

When rendering grapes, I always looked for ways to capture the powdery surface on them. Using a colored pencil over a watercolor painting (once it was dry, of course) was very useful for this effect. Colored pencil was opaque with a bluish cast, which is why it worked so well.

All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

I have always loved illustrating flowers. Using watercolor/dyes, I loved replicating exquisite colors and textures. Sometimes, a touch of colored pencil added details that worked perfectly. I was also captivated by the beauty of water droplets.

My first floral painting was inspired by a photo that I saw in a magazine. It was a wonderful exercise for me. After that, I worked solely from my own photography. The second painting was commissioned by People Magazine twenty years ago. Later on in my career, both of these paintings were marketed as posters. It was not a lucrative venture at all, but was definitely exciting for me to have prints to display of my work. I share below my job layout, drawings, printed pieces and my photo reference.

The art director’s layout for my People Magazine floral illustration. I rendered the graduation tassel and hat separately.

I did not notice that this flower was missing a petal when I painted it!

My actual photo reference.

Both of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

In 2000, I became quite familiar with bagels when I painted two-dozen of them. My illustrations were used on packaging for Lender’s Bagels.

The art director wanted each bagel to have its own character. Many of the bagel flavors had different contours; some were rounder and others were more oval. Through experimentation, I discovered that markers and colored pencil worked best to create realistic illustrations. I added small amounts of acrylic to create details such as sesame, poppy seeds and highlights. I have included some close-ups of my illustrations.

All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

Post navigation

Subscribe

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,788 other followers

We are a community of poets, writers, photographers and artists who have come together to collectively share our work with you. We have writing prompts and challenges to motivate and inspire you to write and photograph and join us. Kick off your shoes and stay awhile.